HP Launches New Unit, Teams With Microsoft, Intel On Business Mobility

Pages

Hewlett-Packard has launched a new commercial mobility and software unit along with a tighter alliance with software giant Microsoft and chip giant Intel aimed at driving dramatic breakthroughs in the mobility market.

Michael Park, who was named just last month the vice president and general manager of HP's new Mobility and Software Business Personal Systems organization, said the business will have its own separate profit and loss statement along with dedicated resources aimed at capturing what is an explosive growth market opportunity for HP and its solution provider partners.

"This is a large-scale endeavor," said Park, who spent 8 years working on Cloud OS in Microsoft's Server and Tools Division and Microsoft Business Solutions before joining Palo Alto, Calif.-based HP a year ago. "We have got an entire organization running from field sales and partner management all the way back into R&D, development and product management that is now 100 percent focused on this opportunity."

HP is readying new products that will be rolled out in the fall, along with a new specialized channel certification program for HP and Microsoft partners. Furthermore, HP said it expects to launch new mobility partner program incentives of its own at the start its new fiscal year, Nov. 1.

HP, Intel and Microsoft have also all pledged to work together to provide a full suite of commercial mobility sales, marketing and resources for channel partners.

The tighter alliance with Microsoft, Redmond, Wash., and Intel, Santa Clara, Calif., comes only one month after HP CEO Meg Whitman held a roundtable session with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Intel CEO Brian Krzanich at HP's Discover conference. Whitman singled out the get-together as part of a rejuvenation of the 30-year relationship between the three companies and a "renewal" of partnership vows.

HP insiders said Whitman is doubling down on the Microsoft and Intel partnerships to drive major technology advances across a wide range of markets.

Park said he sees the move to separate the commercial mobility and software business into a separate organization combined with a much stronger alliance with Microsoft and Intel as a watershed event. He called the commercial mobility opportunity every bit as as big as the Internet transformation that caused widespread changes in businesses.

"Commercial mobility transformation is really that big," he said. "There is an opportunity to deliver all kinds of new ways to innovate for customers which is going to create lots of monetary value in the partner ecosystem."

Up until now, Park said, there has been a "void" in the commercial mobility market. "We are in the early stages of what is largely going to be a fairly substantiative transformation for how mobility changes the way people work," he said. "We want to be the first ones with a very specific commercial focus from enterprise all the way down to SMB."

Key to making that happen, said Park, is getting Intel, Microsoft, and HP all focused on delivering innovative commercial offerings in what the three are referring to as the Mobilize Your Business Program.

"We are focused on how mobility is transforming vertical industries and then looking at how we can bring the right combination of devices, accessories, software and services around those solutions and then help partners deliver them," he said. "This goes beyond driving a transaction to working with partners to help customers on a complete commercial mobility transformation."

HP is already working on major commercial vertical market mobility advancements with Intel and Microsoft including a health care-focused ElitePad Jacket that can be used in hospitals and clinics to deliver improved patient care, said Park. What's more, he said, HP is working on ruggedized Jackets for industries such as oil and gas.

While a large group of EMC's investors continue to hope that EMC will sell parts of itself to create more clear valuation for them, EMC is likely heading in the opposite direction by considering more acquisitions, according to a top analyst.